


Pull Me Under

by darklesmylove



Category: Nikolai Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: AND IM LOVING IT, Darkness never dies, I KNOWS, I got bored, I really hope you all like this, Multi, and innuendos, angry alina, but we'll see, darkles is back bitches, he's not in this at all, idk what im gonna do with it but, im just randomly posting this im sorry, im not sure what ship yet tbh so i put all of the possibilites, im so tired, leaning toward alarkling atm, lots of flirting, love genyalina, more genya than canon for SURE, mwaahahha, post kos, she dumped mal's ass by the way, she's done with everyone's shit, so kos spoilers that should be obvious, summers coming soon so we'll figure it out, third person fic woah thats new for me I knows, typo but im too lazy to fix it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 11:43:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18799672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklesmylove/pseuds/darklesmylove
Summary: The atmosphere at the table was tense, to say the least, everyone finally reunited with the exclusion of Mal. There would always be an unspoken understanding between all of them after all they had been through, but for some reason now it felt like everyone was worlds apart. Alina was, quite surprisingly, the first person to speak, her voice ringing with an unusual authority."What the fuck happened. Why the hell is he here, alive. Furthermore, why are you dragging me back into all of this shit?"Her golden eyes seemed ancient, haunted with unspoken knowledge. It made Nikolai's skin crawl."We just bumped into him on a lovely stroll on the Fold, I thought a reunion might be fun," Nikolai smiled wanly, canting his head as Alina shot him a look of irritation.post king of scars, just a little (possibly big) au





	Pull Me Under

**Author's Note:**

> im just randomly posting this idk I like it and I hope you guys do too 
> 
> if you want me to continue let me know! im willing to put the time in for this au but only if people are invested you dig 
> 
> enjoy and love you all <33

For the first time, they were alone.

Nikolai watched the Darkling with a caution that was thinly veiled, his hazel eyes hard and troubled and haunted with fear as he casually sat on the edge of his bedroom desk, his arms lazily folded over his chest. The Darkling mirrored his body language, arms loosely crossed as he leaned against the bedpost, regarding Nikolai with those infuriatingly amused silver eyes. It seemed with every subsequent passing second he was becoming more and more... himself, his appearance growing more beautiful, muscles hardening his lean frame, his skin paling to ivory, the lines of his features softening and sharpening to graceful, effortless beauty.

A strange thought, that someone so beautiful could harbor so much darkness.

Nikolai shifted. They hadn't spoken a word, a strange challenge in the air as they stared at each other. Who could be more relaxed, more unbothered, more nonchalant. More strategic. More cunning.

Uncomfortableness pricked across his skin as he was maddeningly aware of every single one of his movements being carefully analyzed by one of the most powerful grisha to ever exist. More likely than not the man was cataloguing some gleaned information away to use against him later.

"I admit your survival was not in my top ten list of things I wanted to see happen." Nikolai spoke first, careful to keep his words even, a hint of the playful sarcasm present that he used with everyone. Now it seemed fundamentally wrong in the face of this ancient power.

"I'm sure many would agree with you." The Darkling hummed in return, the picture of ease as he quirked an eyebrow in some mild semblance of challenge. 

Nikolai felt his cool crumbling significantly faster than he had initially hoped. He needed answers, he needed to get this demon out of him and he was more than willing to sacrifice his pride to do so. 

"What did you do to me." His words carried the echo of surety, but was not quite convincing enough to either set of ears.

The Darkling canted his head, a mockingly thoughtful expression passing over his graceful lips. Silence hung in the air; the Darkling knew he had a handle on control and he was savoring it to the very fullest.

"Tell me about Alina and maybe I'll consider helping you, otkazats'ya king," he responded breezily, though Nikolai didn't miss the flicker of something in his quartz eyes. Longing, maybe?

A weakness then.

A faint inner voice angrily chided him. That weakness was Alina, and he would never exploit her for his own gain again. That much he had promised himself.

"Alina Starkov," Nikolai tapped his lips, words light, "Short, spunky little thing, has a strange aversion to power, immune to my charms. Ghost white hair and perpetually dark bags underneath her eyes that somehow make her beauty even more glorious. Married to a quite irksome tracker." The Darkling's jaw tightened quite obviously with something between jealousy and irritation. He stared at Nikolai with calm, cool anger, expectant.

They both knew that hadn't been what the Darkling meant. 

A hollow sigh escaped Nikolai's lips.

"Still powerless, so she is of no use to you anymore. She's happy. We don't speak often."

The Darkling's gaze averted, something soft passing over his features. "Usefulness. Something I have had much time to contemplate on."

Nikolai had no reply to that.

Had that just been some sort of twisted admission of how he truly felt about her? Or was this more of his infamous manipulation?

He had known there was something powerful that had bound the Darkling and Alina together, but maybe Nikolai had underestimated the depth of their emotional connection.

The Darkling straightened his shoulders, suddenly all cold, hard edges. The sight was almost a relief; now this was the Darkling that Nikolai knew and loathed.

"Merzost is not within the natural order, I trust you have at least come to that basic conclusion by now," he cooly murmured, "It lives on once it has been brought into this world, it cannot be expunged any more than the air or the sea or the sky. But it can be dispersed, it can be... transferred." His gaze flickered down to Nikolai's hands, something satisfied present underneath his impassive demeanor. It didn't matter. Hope had already rooted deep in Nikolai's heart, dangerous in its strength.

"What do you want?" Nikolai questioned, pausing before adding a sarcastic, "I wouldn't suppose you'd be interested in my hand in marriage. That's quite a popular commodity currently." He instantly felt the urge to cringe as the Darkling flashed him the blankest, emptiest stare he could have possibly fathomed. A beat of his silent contemplation ensued.

Nikolai braced himself for what he would demand. The throne? The heads of the people he deemed traitors? All of Ravka?

"Alina. And a spot on the council to oversee the protection of Grisha. That is all I require, and I will rid you of the darkness running through your veins and rooted deep within your soul."

Nikolai sputtered. "I-I can't _give_ you Alina, are you insane?"

The Darkling flashed him a look of mirth. "I know she cannot be given or claimed anymore than you or me. That much I have come to realize. No, merely request that she comes to Os Alta so that I may speak to her and that will suffice. That and a seat on the council. That is my price."

Protectiveness immediately clouded Nikolai's thoughts, he forced the irrational response to the back of his mind. Alina _would_ want to know that the Darkling had survived, and she would be perfectly safe within the walls of the palace. As far as a seat on the council, he most definitely couldn't trust the man, but had he ever really trusted anyone in politics?

"How do I know you'll uphold your end of the deal?" Nikolai asked with feigned casualness. He had the wild urge to claw at his chest, to desperately scrape at the black veins crawling along his hands. This dark power had been inside of him for too long, they both knew it.

The Darkling arched a brow, his lips pressing together as if to stifle an amused laugh. "My word is good enough. You can lock me up if you please until it's done."

Nikolai resisted the instinctive temptation to say something inappropriately suggestive.

"Tolya and Tamar will escort you to temporary chambers for you to sleep in, which will be locked and patrolled on a 24 hour watch," he pushed himself up off the desk so he was standing at his full height, still an irritating few inches shorter than the Darkling. The man merely nodded in an unbothered manner, as if he wasn't a prisoner here. It was disconcerting, to say the very least.

That night, as Zoya chained Nikolai to his bed, he speculated that, in fact, he was more of a prisoner than the Darkling ever would be.

Irony, perhaps, was even wittier than he was.

***

It hadn't taken long for Nikolai to get in contact with Alina, and in doing so he had purposefully left his summons ambiguous at best. A coach had been sent for her safe passage; she was to arrive in Os Alta today. Soon, in fact. The thought of seeing her again sent a pang of something bittersweet through the very depths of his heart. Alina Starkov, the only person to see him for the man he truly was, the first woman to ever reject him so profoundly, the friend he hadn't spoken to in months due to his own shame.

His hands wrung together, clothed in black leather gloves that dimly reminded him of a certain master thief back in Ketterdam.

Zoya was nowhere to be found, having previously denounced him rather poisonously for so quickly giving in to the Darkling's demands. In fact, all of his council had been varying levels of furious with him.

But none of them were living with a demon inside of them. None of them had to endure that constant, harrowing terror and excruciating pain. And none of them had the promise of a cure dangling over their heads.

Genya stood beside him currently, and though she had undoubtedly suffered the worst at the Darkling's hand, she had also been the most forgiving of his quick surrender. She knew the horrors of merzost almost as well as he did. But today her amber eye was sparkling with nothing but excitement, her fiery red hair glowing in the pool warm daylight casting down from the expansive window. They hadn't seen Alina in a significant while, none of them visited Alina often upon her request to live a normal life, which had undoubtedly made the sting of losing her even worse. She had made it painfully clear she didn't want to be apart of their world any longer.

Nikolai grimaced. _She might not have a choice anymore._

Without warning, the palace doors were drug open rather ceremoniously to reveal a figure clad in dull gray, hood falling back to expose a shock of white hair. In a flash, the two best friends were tangled in an embrace, leaving Nikolai to look on nervously as they exchanged laughs and tears, mournful giggles and happy cries filling the expansive room. When they finally broke away, Alina's golden eyes immediately went to Nikolai.

It felt as if someone had slammed a particularly hard fist into his gut. Suddenly he was three years younger, looking down at her with a carefree grin and a heavy emerald ring clutched tightly in his hand.

"Nikolai," she smiled gently, tears still shining in her eyes as she rushed into his embrace. He held her close, savoring the gentle, soothing scent of her, like a summer breeze twisting through a field of freshly bloomed flowers. She clutched at the rough fabric of his olive green uniform, he felt it bunch briefly as her grip tightened before releasing slowly, almost painfully so. He wanted to protest as she pulled away but, rather reluctantly, he held his tongue. Her golden eyes were no longer threatened with tears, a curious suspicion cautiously held about her. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but why did you ask me here, Nikolai?" she questioned, raising a brow a calculated measure.

The look made him entirely too uneasy, it mirrored an expression that the Darkling wore all too often.

"I-" he hesitated, resisting the urge to take her hands in his. He looked to Genya for help, meeting her eye with an air of helplessness.

No one would want to be the one to admit it to her.

"Just come with us, Alina," Genya grimly determined, hooking her arm around Alina's and promptly tugging her towards the grand staircase. Nikolai trailed behind, feeling much less than a king as they ignored him in favor of murmuring softly to one another, Alina growing increasingly agitated with every passing second. Their steps echoed through the empty hallways as they drew nearer to the chambers they had found for the Darkling, an entirely new room seeing as Zoya had taken over his. Nikolai couldn't hear what Genya was saying, but as they stopped in front of the closed door, he registered Alina's gasp of horror, the anger flashing in her golden eyes.

And yet, there was no fear to her demeanor as she shook her head, her hands clenching tightly at her sides.

"Leave us be, this needs to be done alone," she snapped with a heated glare directed at neither of them. Genya reached forward, squeezing her hand in comfort before she retreated. Nikolai's heart ached to do the same, though he knew he would never dare. "You too, Nikolai," Alina harshly spoke, not sparing him a second glance and she threw the door open, immediately snarling something unintelligible at the inhabitant.

Nikolai turned, but hesitated, morbid curiosity prickling at his fingertips.

Quietly, he approached the door, which remained open a small crack, thankfully a large enough gap for him to peer through. Alina was gesticulating wildly, a storm of beautiful, wild anger as she punctuated each furious remark with increasingly hard smacks against the man's chest.

It was shocking, to say the least, to see the Darkling look almost remorseful under her gaze, taking every verbal and physical blow in somber silence. Nikolai shifted closer, his ears straining to hear what she could possibly be saying to him.

"... you have got to be fucking kidding me, Aleksander, you shouldn't be alive. _You shouldn't be alive_. You should have fucking stayed dead, saints, I mourned you, I cried for you. And you'd best believe if I still had my powers I would cut you in half right here..."

Nikolai's breath had hitched at hearing her address him by a name, not his title. Jealousy and disbelief grew thick at the back of his throat.

Just how close had they been?

"Alina..." The soft hum of the Darkling's voice, gentle as a caress, was almost jarring.

She visibly ground her teeth together. "You are not going to interfere in my life, Aleksander. I will not allow it. I dare you to try me, look me in the eye and tell me I'm playing around right now you stupid fucking _idiot_."

He took a step closer to her. Nikolai had to restrain himself from slamming open the door and beating him to the ground.

Alina tilted her chin up in defiance, meeting his gaze with a ferocity. The Darkling gazed at her with a startling reverence. "You can control the shadows Alina, do not act as if you don't know. As much as you wish it so, you will never be a normal otkazats'ya with a normal otkazats'ya life."

Her body visibly shuddered. "No."

He nodded, seemingly hesitating before lifting his hand. To Nikolai's utter surprise, a soft glow ignited in his palms, soothingly captivating. Dread pooled in the pits of Nikolai's stomach as, after a tense moment, Alina lifted her hand level with his, palm up.

Shadows collected at her slender fingertips.

The look they shared was devastating.

Alina's hand dropped, her expression shuttering. "I love Mal, Aleksander, and I swear if you try anything with him I will stab you a hundred more times until you are dead for good. I don't..." she paused, clearing her throat. "Say you know that there will never be anything between us again," she spoke more firmly than before. The Darkling stilled, falling silent. Slowly, cautiously, his hand reached out for hers, tugging at her fingers and intertwining them as he murmured, "I know." To Nikolai's dismay, she didn't resist the intimate gesture.

"You can still be a better man, Aleksander, but it can't be for my sake anymore," she said so quietly Nikolai almost missed the words. Then she pulled her hand away, turning and heading for the door.

Nikolai scrambled backwards, hastily darting a healthy distance away before leaning back against the wall with a charade of boredom. His heart was pounding in his throat as the door eased open. She shut it gently behind her, immediately startling at the sight of Nikolai a ways down the hallway.

"I thought I told you to leave, Nikolai," she frowned just slightly, though seemingly no actual anger backed the expression.

"I just decided to wait in case he tried to steal away my lovely bride to be," he grinned with his familiar air of confidence, though an insistent, hollow ache thrummed against his sternum in protest.

Alina had never looked at Nikolai the way she had just looked at the Darkling. He gave a slight, imperceptible shake of his head to dispel the gloomy thoughts as she made her way over to him. He was not in love with Alina anymore, and furthermore, neither him _or_ the Darkling had managed to capture her heart. He offered his arm in a grand, overly dramatic gesture, making her snort, though she took it anyway without hesitation. "I hate men," she muttered, though a couple seconds later she matched his grin with an equally bright smile.

As they walked, making light, teasing conversation, he desperately tried to push away the haunting thought of shadows in her hands.

***

The atmosphere at the table was tense, to say the least, everyone finally reunited with the exclusion of Mal. There would always be an unspoken understanding between all of them after all they had been through, but for some reason now it felt like everyone was worlds apart. Alina was, quite surprisingly, the first person to speak, her voice ringing with an unusual authority.

"What the fuck happened. Why the hell is he here, _alive_. Furthermore, why are you dragging me back into all of this shit?"

Her golden eyes seemed ancient, haunted with unspoken knowledge. It made Nikolai's skin crawl.

"We just bumped into him on a lovely stroll on the Fold, I thought a reunion might be fun," Nikolai smiled wanly, canting his head as Alina shot him a look of irritation.

Zoya's features were pulled into a less than pleased scowl, her lips curling slightly. "We should have killed him already. Nikolai just seems to think that we should bow down to all of the Darkling's demands and let him waltz right back into power. Isn't that right, moi tsar?"

Her words dripped an acetic bitterness that rubbed at Nikolai's already frayed nerves. "I would prefer to not have a demon living in my roguishly handsome body for another second, but that's just me." He flashed her a smile across the table, she glowered in response.

Alina's gaze trailed over his body with an aura of thoughtfulness, lingering on his ungloved hands. When they had informed her of Nikolai's... friend, she hadn't seemed surprised in the slightest, murmuring something about the wound on her shoulder itching in the depths of the night, a silent answer to the call of merzost.

"I have no doubt the Darkling is the only one that can fix you, Nikolai," she let out a sigh that was impossibly heavy, "Merzost is a secret of the world that only he has unlocked. I won't risk tampering with it. If you want answers, he has them."

Genya's head tipped forward in a reluctant nod of agreement. "I think Alina is right."

Murmurs of unrest rippled across the table.

A throbbing sensation formed at Nikolai's temples. "He wants a spot on the council, is that really so horrible to accept? It will allow us to keep track of him even more easily if he's within the palace walls."

Zoya scoffed. "Yes, Nikolai, you'll keep track of him up until he kills you in your sleep."

"Zoya." Alina's voice was soft, but firm with warning. To the room's surprise, Zoya fell to silence. Brooding silence, but even so.

In fact the whole room remained quiet in favor of waiting for her to speak, as if she held all the answers in the palm of her graceful hand. 

"I think it would be best for me to move back to Os Alta," she sighed, her words laced with dim irritation, as if the situation of their biggest, most powerful enemy coming back to life was a nothing more than a minor nuisance.

Nikolai's knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of the table, not doing well at hiding the jolt of surprise that traveled through his body. "Really, Alina? What about Mal? I don't think he'll-" 

Her words were sharp as she cut him off. "Mal and I are no longer together. And furthermore, no man speaks for me. You need my help to fix this mess and to deal with him, and even if I don't want to come back I'm not going to abandon Ravka." Everyone was shocked to silence, staring at her with wide eyes. Nikolai's thoughts more than likely mirrored everyone else's.

Who was this new Alina? She was the same and yet somehow startlingly different. More confident, more sure of herself than she had ever been. Though it seemed that her sarcastic, irritable streak had remained.

She stood up, her hands braced against the wood of the table. "No objections? Great. I'll see you all tomorrow." 

With that, she twirled on her heels, striding from the room and leaving them all in collectively stunned silence. 

**Author's Note:**

> as always with my work, feel free to leave any comments/constructive criticism/praise/kudos, its why I love to write and share my stuff with you all! :)


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